Analysis: Ol’ Man Vinnie Paul No Like The Blast Beats
When Hellyeah! drummer Vinnie Paul states his opinion that metal is rife with “over-drumming,” he doesn’t mean that precisely. He’s really saying that his definition of metal drumming predates Pete Sandoval and John Tardy, and he hasn’t updated it. Which is freedom; VP is at liberty to relate to whatever he wishes. But his communication has impact: Though VP is a merry cat whose vibe says “Hate Eternal ain’t my bag, baby,” his words indict about 1000 meaningful drum performances. To Ultimate Guitar:
It’s drummers playing for drummers. It’s called, ‘Look at me. Listen how fast I can go.’ There’s no melody, there’s no song, and there’s no chorus. It just doesn’t take you anywhere, so it doesn’t have a groove to me. I think there’s a lot of death metal or doom metal dudes that somehow or another find a groove in it. David Vincent from Morbid Angel is a good friend of mine and he’s like, ‘Yeah, bro, there’s great groove in that blast beat, man. You just haven’t found it yet.’
David Vincent, my man! Cuz if you were into metal before Harmony Corruption, you needed time to warm up to blast beats. Some of us still resist! Keep trying VP! For now, he digs a bigger hole:
I can appreciate being able to go that fast with their left hand, man. But I just can’t groove to that beat. I’m sorry. It’s just like somebody sweeping the floor or something — tik tik tik tik tik. It just doesn’t really jam to me. I’d rather hear a Bonham groove going on than somebody sweeping the floor. You know?
Like a natural rhetoricist, VP sets up his point for victory via a totally unfair analogy. After all, to our ears, blast beats are like his sacred Bonham groove at a higher speed. Not a huge deal, just another “opinion phrased as a fact/diagnosis” and the prospect of encountering that for the rest of ours lives is a bummer. Stop by VP, we’ll show you the good brutal stuff!
